ABC Board

The ABC Board is the body responsible for the operations of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.^[1] It is made up of five to seven directors chosen by the Australian government and a Managing Director who is appointed by the Board itself.^[1][2][3] At various times, ABC staff have been granted rights to elect a nominee for appointment to the Board; and as of April 2013 staff elected a nominee-director.^[4]

Members

The Governor-General, on the recommendation of the Federal Government, appoints members, as specified in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act, 1983, commonly called the ABC Act.^[5][6] The ABC Act specifies that Directors must be experienced in broadcasting, communications or management, or have expertise in financial or technical matters, or have cultural or other interests relevant to the provision of broadcasting services.^[7] Each director serves a term of five years, with eligibility for reappointment at the end of this term.^[7]

Directors are expected to follow the ABC Board Protocol, which stipulates responsibilities, expectations, rights, and benefits.^[7]

Current Board members are:^[8]

Name	Functional role	Term start	Notes / Reference
James Spigelman AC QC	Chairman	1 April 2012	[9]
Michelle Guthrie	Managing Director	1 May 2016
Cheryl Bart AO		3 June 2010	[10]
Jane Bennett	Company Secretary	30 June 2011
Peter Lewis		2 October 2014	[11]
Simon Mordant AM		8 November 2012	[12]
Matt Peacock	Staff Elected Director	22 April 2013	[4]
Steven Skala AO		6 October 2005	[13]
Dr Fiona Stanley AC FAA		30 June 2011	[14]

The board maintains an Advisory Council, which advises it on matters concerning the Corporation's programming.^[15] The Council is made up of twelve members, broadly representative of the Australian community, which serve staggered four-year terms. Vacancies are advertised in September–October each year. The Advisory Council's current Chair is Dr Jane Munro, Head of International House at the University of Melbourne.^[15]

Appointment

The Minister for Communications nominates candidates to the Governor-General for appointment to the ABC Board; based on a shortlist prepared by an independent nomination panel. As of October 2014, members of the panel were businessman David Gonski AC, former diplomat Ric Smith AO, PSM, News Corp Australia columnist Janet Albrechtsen (a former ABC Board member), and former deputy Liberal leader Neil Brown QC.^[11][13]

Appointments to the board made by successive governments have often resulted in criticism of the appointees' political affiliation, background, and relative merit.^[16][17] From 2003 the Howard government also made several controversial appointments to the ABC Board, including Albrechtsen, a prominent critic,^[18] Ron Brunton,^[19] and Keith Windschuttle.^[17][20]

During their 2007 federal election campaign, Labor announced plans to introduce a new system, similar to that of the BBC, for appointing members to the board.^[21][22] Under this new system, now in place, ABC candidates are considered by a panel established "at arm's length" from the Communications Minister.^[23] If the Minister chose someone not on the panel's shortlist, the Minister would be required to justify their selection to Australian Parliament. The Chairman of the ABC is nominated by the Prime Minister and endorsed by the Leader of the Opposition.^[21][24]

Key people

Board members

Chairman / Chairperson Order Name Term start Term end Notes / Reference 1 Sir Charles Lloyd Jones 1932 1934 [25] 2 William James Cleary 1934 1945 [26] 3 Sir Richard Boyer KBE 1 April 1945 5 June 1961 Died in office[27] 4 Sir James Darling CMG OBE 1 July 1961 May 1967 [28] 5 Sir Robert Madgwick OBE 1 July 1967 30 June 1973 [29][30] 6 Professor Richard Downing ! July 1973 10 November 1975 Died in office 7 Sir Henry Bland July 1976 December 1976 [31] 8 John D Norgard 1976 1981 9 Dame Leonie Kramer AC DBE 1982 30 June 1983 10 Ken Myer AC DSC 1 July 1983 1986 [32] 11 David Hill 1986 1987 Resigned as Chair to take up appointment as Managing Director[33] 12 Bob Somervaille 1987 1991 [33] 13 Professor Mark Armstrong 1991 23 July 1996 1996 [33][34] 14 Donald McDonald AC 24 July 1996 31 December 2006 [33][34][35] 15 Maurice Newman AC 1 January 2007 31 March 2012 [33] 16 James Spigelman AC QC 1 April 2012 present [9]

Notable directors Name Term start Term end Notes / Reference Janet Albrechtsen 24 February 2005 18 February 2010 [18][36][37][38] Cheryl Bart AO 3 June 2010 present [10] John Bannon AO 24 July 1994 July 1999 [34][39] Neville Bonner 1 July 1983 [40] Ron Brunton 1 May 2003 30 April 2008 [19] Quentin Dempster Elected by staff[41] John Gallagher QC 9 December 1999 23 February 2008 [42][43][44] Di Gribble AM [45] Earle Hackett 1973 [46] Peter Hurley Ramona Koval 2002 2006 Elected by staff[47] Michael Kroger 1998 February 2003 [48] Michael Lynch March 2009 Ian Macphee AO 9 December 1994 [34] Professor Julianne Schultz AM 1 October 2014 Steven Skala AO 6 October 2005 present [13] Dr Fiona Stanley AC FAA 30 June 2011 present [14] Keith Windschuttle June 2006 [17][20]

Management

Order	Title	Name	Term commence	Term end	Reference
1	General Manager	Sir Charles Moses	November 1935	January 1965	[49][50]
2		Sir Talbot Duckmanton	26 February 1965	1 July 1982	[51]
3		Keith Jennings	August 1982	1983
4	Managing Director	Geoffrey Whitehead	23 January 1984	31 December 1986	[52][53]
5		David Hill	1987	25 February 1995	[54]
6		Brian Johns	17 March 1995	17 March 2000
7		Jonathan Shier	17 March 2000	31 December 2001	[35]
8		Russell Balding	29 May 2002	25 March 2006
9		Mark Scott	5 July 2006	29 April 2016
10		Michelle Guthrie	1 May 2016	present

Criticism

Past appointments have associated directly with political parties—five of fourteen appointed chairmen have been accused of political affiliation or friendship, include Richard Downing and Ken Myer (both of whom publicly endorsed the Australian Labor Party at the 1972 election^[55]), as well as Sir Henry Bland. David Hill was close to Neville Wran, while Donald McDonald was considered to be a close friend of John Howard.^[56]

In the past, appointments of commissioners and directors also drew criticism.^[17] In the 1932, a majority of the commissioners were publicly conservative. This continued to 1942, when the Curtin and Chifley administrations appointed a more 'politically balanced' commission.

Once elected to power, Labor prime minister Whitlam replaced the entire board—appointed by Liberal governments over the previous 23 years—with supporters of the Labor Party.^[56] His successor, Malcolm Fraser, attempted unsuccessfully to take similar action by replacing the board with politically conservative commissioners in 1976,^[56] but was only able to make new appointments by adding two extra director positions onto the board.^[49][56]

In 1983, Minister John Button referred proposed board appointments to an all-party committee for the first time.^[56] This practice was discontinued before the end of Paul Keating's government.^[56] Alan Ramsey, in a 1996 article for The Sydney Morning Herald noted that:

“

"12 came from overt political backgrounds, among them a former Labor premier,[17] a former Liberal senator, a former Liberal Cabinet minister, four trade union activists, four advisers to various State Labor administrations, and Labor's former opinion pollster, Rod Cameron.[17]" In short, "less than half Labor's ABC appointments over the years have had obvious party political connections, while two of them came from among the ranks of its political opponents."[49]

”

A 2006 restructure of the ABC board, undertaken by the Howard government, abolished the position of staff elected director.^[3] The elected director was previously nominated and elected by employees of the ABC. Nominees for this director office were to have been employed at least 24 hours a week by the ABC and the term of office was two years with eligibility for re-election to a second term. An elected director was not eligible for a third term of office. Broadcaster Ramona Koval had occupied the position for the previous four years prior to its abolition amid ongoing intense controversy.^[57] This drew criticism from the Labor Party, Australian Greens, and the Democrats, who saw it as a 'revenge measure' taken against the Corporation.^[58][59]

In July 2007, Labor announced plans to make the system of appointments to the board independent of the Minister for Communications;^[21] and also reinstate the staff election of a nominee director.^[4] Initial members of the independent panel were Gonski, Smith, Allan Fels and Leneen Forde.^[13]

References

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3. "Restructure of ABC Board" (Press release). Website of Senator the Hon Helen Coonan, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. Archived from the original on 8 August 2007. Retrieved 27 November 2007.
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53. Whitehead to leave ABC, The Canberra Times, 25 September 1986.
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